Jim Dunn ran a rear engine funny car back in the 60's but was to short of a wheelbase thus bad handling.
Perhaps alter the rules to allow a longer wheelbase thus avoiding chaos.
You length the wheelbase by joining the front half of a present-day funny car, remove the rear of the car behind the driver and join a rear engine to the frame along with the rearend etc. Basically, a funny car morphed with a rear engine dragster. Could save a driver's life.
You've outlined a fascinating hybrid concept for a funny car aimed at improving safety and handling! Let's break down the idea and discuss its feasibility, potential benefits, and drawbacks:
**The Concept: Rear-Engine Funny Car Hybrid**
The core idea is to address the handling issues of early rear-engine funny cars by:
1. **Starting Point:** Utilize the front half (chassis and body) of a modern funny car. This leverages decades of aerodynamic development and driver safety cage design.
2. **Shorten Existing Funny Car:** Truncate the existing funny car chassis just behind the driver's cockpit.
3. **Rear Engine Addition:** Graft the rear engine components (engine, transmission, rear axle, and suspension) onto the modified funny car chassis. This is effectively creating a mid-engine configuration, but due to the existing funny car cockpit location it would still have rear engine dragster properties.
4. **Longer Wheelbase:** The joining process would inherently lengthen the wheelbase compared to the problematic short wheelbase of Jim Dunn's original design.
5. **Rules Modification:** You'd need a rule change to allow this drastically different configuration in the Funny Car class.
**Potential Benefits:**
* **Improved Handling & Stability:** A longer wheelbase is almost universally recognized as contributing to better stability, especially at high speeds. Moving the engine weight rearward can improve weight distribution and reduce the tendency for the front end to lift.
* **Enhanced Safety:**
* The modern funny car front chassis and safety cage offer a robust protective structure.
* Potentially moves the engine further away from the driver in a crash, possibly reducing fire risk (though this depends on the final configuration).
* **Reduced Driver Fatigue:** More stable handling might translate to less driver workload and fatigue.
* **Innovation:** This would be a radical departure from the traditional funny car design and could spur further innovation in drag racing.
**Potential Drawbacks and Challenges:**
* **Complexity and Cost:** Fabricating such a hybrid chassis would be incredibly complex and expensive. The engineering required to ensure structural integrity and predictable handling would be substantial. Specialized welding, fabrication, and testing would be essential.
* **Aerodynamics:** Blending a modern funny car front with a rear engine dragster rear will create HUGE aerodynamic challenges. It's likely that the car's aerodynamics would be significantly less efficient than either a dedicated funny car or dragster, leading to reduced performance.
* **Weight Distribution:** Achieving optimal weight distribution would be difficult. The location of the engine, fuel tank, and other components would need careful consideration.
* **Engine Access & Maintenance:** Rear engine cars can be difficult to work on. Imagine trying to access the engine in this hybrid configuration in the pits, squeezed between the body and rear axle.
* **Rule Changes & Acceptance:** Convincing sanctioning bodies (like NHRA) to change the rules to allow such a radical design would be a major hurdle. There would be significant resistance from teams who have invested heavily in existing technology.
* **Performance:** Despite the potential handling improvements, the added weight and aerodynamic inefficiencies might result in slower ETs and lower top speeds than current funny cars. No one will use the design if it's slower, even if it's safer.
* **Driver Perspective:** Driver visibility could be compromised with engine components possibly obstructing the view in the mirrors.
* **Fire Safety:** Moving the fuel tank, and the potential for fuel leaks in a crash, could present challenges.
* **Cooling:** Engine cooling would be a concern, requiring careful design of air intakes and exhaust routing.
**Feasibility:**
While conceptually interesting, the feasibility of this project is low in its current form, primarily due to cost, complexity, and aerodynamic challenges. Creating a completely new chassis from the ground up, designed specifically for this purpose, would be a smarter approach to explore if trying to create a safer, easier to drive Funny Car.
**Alternative Approaches:**
Instead of a full hybrid:
* **Focus on Existing Funny Car Chassis Improvements:** Continue to improve the handling and safety of existing funny car chassis through improved suspension designs, weight distribution optimization, and aerodynamic advancements.
* **Explore Electrification:** Electric funny cars could potentially offer smoother power delivery and reduced fire risk.
* **Advanced Driver Assistance Systems:** Investigate traction control, stability control, and other driver aids (with careful consideration of their impact on the driver's skill and the nature of the sport).
* **Improved Cockpit Safety:** Continue to strengthen safety cages and improve driver restraint systems.
**In Conclusion:**
Your concept is an interesting thought experiment, but the challenges of implementation are significant. While the goal of improving safety is laudable, focusing on incremental improvements to existing designs or exploring alternative technologies like electrification may be more practical paths forward.
It also raises a fundamental question: Is the goal to make Funny Cars *easier* to drive or *safer* to drive? Some level of difficulty is inherently part of the sport, and completely removing the challenge could detract from the driver's skill and the overall excitement.
